INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL ACTIVITIES

International Cooperation

Efforts continued throughout 1994 to implement agreements made at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. The June 1994 deadline for drawing up the desertification treaty and action plan called for in Agenda 21 was not met, but the convention was agreed and signed in October. The UN General Assembly had agreed that priority should be given to Africa, but countries of Latin America and Asia refused to accept this, and the nations likely to provide most of the financing were uneasy about the open-ended nature of the plans being submitted.

At a meeting in December 1993, European Union (EU) environment ministers agreed to ratify the UN Convention on Climate Change after six members withdrew their objection that ratification would be hypocritical in the absence of a carbon and energy tax. The tax was opposed by the U.K., and at a meeting in Luxembourg on Oct. 5, 1994, the British secretary of state for the environment, John Gummer, reiterated his government’s rejection of it, even though the chairman, Germany’s Klaus Töpfer, suggested a compromise that would permit governments to raise existing fuel and energy taxes rather than introduce new ones.

An International Conference on Chemical Safety, held in Stockholm April 25-29 under UN auspices, was attended by delegations from 130 countries. Arising from Agenda 21, it aimed to find ways of policing the trade, use, and disposal of toxic substances. An International Forum on Chemical Safety was established as an instrument to integrate and consolidate efforts to promote chemical safety.

Countries participating in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) were presented with the recommendations of a study they had commissioned to evaluate its work at a meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, in December 1993. The study concluded that GEF activities should be suspended, control removed from the World Bank, and an independent secretariat appointed. The main criticism was of a lack of agreement between industrialized and less developed countries (LDCs) on the purpose and strategy of the GEF and the linking of projects to development schemes run by the same dominant institutions. The talks in Cartagena broke down over disagreements about the composition and chairmanship of the 30-member executive council. It was agreed to refresh GEF funds by $2 billion when negotiations were finally completed in March 1994.

Antarctica

In July François Goutorbe, director of the Institute for Polar Research and Study, told Greenpeace International that France had abandoned plans to build a landing strip near its Dumont d’Urville base on the Adélie Coast, on which about $22 million had already been spent, but it was considering renovating the small existing strip for the use of light aircraft. In January a large piece of the Astrolabe glacier had fallen into the sea, causing a huge wave that engulfed the 1,100-m (3,600-ft) runway, washed away a service road, and pushed boulders onto the runway. The area was important for wildlife.

United States

In October 1993 Pres. Bill Clinton published his 50-point plan to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by 100 million tons. The plan relied on voluntary measures, such as greater energy efficiency in homes and electrical appliances, increased reliance on hydroelectric power, reduction of power-plant emissions, and tree planting. It made no attempt to reduce car emissions and was criticized by environmental groups for failing to set targets. In July 1994 Carol Browner, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, told a meeting of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development that the EPA planned to allocate half its annual research budget to long-term research. This would direct more of its funds to universities and would improve standards of peer review.

In late July the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the California desert protection bill. The legislation, which was the largest U.S. land-conservation measure since 1980, had been debated for eight years. It was expected to protect some 3.2 million ha (8 million ac) of desert and more than 2,000 species of plants and animals.

Hearings relating to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound commenced in Anchorage, Alaska, in May. The plaintiffs sought $1.5 billion in compensation from Exxon Corp. and the ship’s captain, Joseph Hazelwood. In June the jury found in favour of the plaintiffs, and in September, in one of the largest awards in legal history, it ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to a group of up to 34,000 fishermen, native Alaskans, and others for harm they had suffered. Hazelwood was also ordered to pay $5,000 in damages.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.